As the Circulating Collection Review Project enters its second year, it presents an opportunity to reflect back on the years activities. I want to thank the 40 plus discipline faculty members, from across ten academic departments, who provided input into the collection review process so far. I also want to thank my colleagues in the Library who have invested considerable time and energy in the project in order to create a quality, accessible collection.
The Library has established a robust web page containing information about the Project available at: http://www.lib.utc.edu/Collection-Review-Project-2.html. On this page you will find campus collection review lists, a project summary and calendar, evaluation and additional information.
The project has been discussed with the Faculty Senate, the Faculty Senate Library Committee, two open campus meetings, in the newspaper, and a range of meetings with individual faculty and academic department. Some new project decisions that I wanted to make you aware of include:
- The Library is now gathering statistics on the in-house use of books. We already collect statistics on the use in-house use for print periodicals.
- At the request of faculty, we have provided additional input avenues, click here to see them.
- At the request of faculty we have adjusted the online submission form to include an Author sort, and duplicate copies and editions, as well as numerous downloadable lists.
- Click here to see comparative circulation figures across UT campuses.
- While there are no target or number quotas, at the request of several faculty we will be looking closely at the numbers and percentages of titles suggested for removal from the collection. We are still adjusting the Fall 2011 lists with your input and will make final numbers available to the campus as we have them. In the meantime, click here for project statistics to date.
Here is a summary of collection areas reviewed to date:
| Fall 2011 Collection Areas | Spring 2012 Collection Areas |
| Moving into Phase 3 Review * | Available for Campus Input through June 30, 2011 |
| Philosophy (B to BD, BH to BJ) | General Reference (A) |
| Psychology (BF) | Religion (BL to BX) |
| World History (C to D) | Women and Gender Studies (HQ) |
| Communication (PN4699 to PN5630) | Music (M) |
| Astronomy (QB) | Art (N, TR, TT) |
| Chemistry (QD | Classics (PA) |
| Agriculture (S) | Writing and Language (PE) |
| Engineering, not electrical (TA to TC, TE to TP, TS) | Theatre and Drama (PN1560 to PN3307) |
| Physics (QC) | |
| Electrical Engineering (TK) | |
| Home Economics (TX) |
As a reminder,
- Phase 1 is an item-by-time review by faculty librarians.
- Phase 2 is review by the campus community
- Phase 3 is multi-angle review, including:
- check all titles for recent circulations
- check all titles for internal use
- search for physical holdings in OCLC’s WorldCat’s database to ensure all titles are physically held by at least 100 other libraries throughout the world
- search for online availability of title via Google Books, Project Gutenberg, Hathi Trust, and other permanent online archives
- send remaining list of titles to interested faculty members for inclusion in departmental libraries
- offer remaining titles via a campus book sale
- work with not-for-profit agency to distribute remaining titles
As previously noted, your input is welcome and will be honored. No justification is required, just tell us the call numbers you want to retain in the collection.